Famous amateurs and FIDE ratings

[Arshad Ali]

Kenneth Rogoff is a fairly well known economist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff

Rogoff was at or close to GM strength. Postscript: Just looked at the wiki link: he made GM in 1978.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Kenneth Rogoff is a fairly well known economist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff

Rogoff was at or close to GM strength. Postscript: Just looked at the wiki link: he made GM in 1978.

Interesting. I'm impressed that someone achieved the GM title and has advanced far in a different area as well. It makes you wonder how good some people might have been at chess if they had not been distracted by something else (normally it is the other way round). Were there any famous chess-playing scientists?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Humphrey Bogart would certainly have been a strong enough chess player to get a FIDE rating, if such things had existed in his day.

What is the best available account of Bogart's chess strength?

Started here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogart#Chess

[Ian Thompson]

Were there any famous chess-playing scientists?

Botvinnik

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Were there any famous chess-playing scientists?

Botvinnik

Thanks. That led me to Vidmar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Vidmar

I also found this list of top-level chess players with PhDs or M.D.s:

http://blog.chess.com/billwall/chess-playing-doctors

[Ian Kingston]

Kenneth Rogoff is a fairly well known economist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff

Rogoff was at or close to GM strength. Postscript: Just looked at the wiki link: he made GM in 1978.

Interesting. I'm impressed that someone achieved the GM title and has advanced far in a different area as well. It makes you wonder how good some people might have been at chess if they had not been distracted by something else (normally it is the other way round). Were there any famous chess-playing scientists?

Don't forget Simen Agdestein: a top 20 GM in the second half of the 1980s and also eight caps (one goal) for Norway's football team.

[Arshad Ali]

Don't forget Simen Agdestein: a top 20 GM in the second half of the 1980s and also eight caps (one goal) for Norway's football team.

Concur about Agdestein. And Rogoff is distinguished in his field as a scholar. But Botvinnik was about as much of a working scientist as Spassky and Tal were "journalists" (notwithstanding that Botvinnik earnt a doctorate). I would put forward Lasker, whose Lasker-Noether theorem is a fundamental result in commutative algebra.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Tarrasch might have become world champion if it weren't for the demands of his career.

[Gavin Strachan]

Tarrasch might have become world champion if it weren't for the demands of his career.

Wasn't Tarrasch just too "Classical" whilst Nimzo too "Modern" to be champs?

[Michael Jones]

Were there any famous chess-playing scientists?

There's a game often quoted as having been played between Einstein and Oppenheimer, but I'm not sure whether it's actually been authenticated - and even if it is genuine, all one can really tell from the game is that Oppenheimer was a complete novice and Einstein was good enough to beat him comfortably.

[Andrew Bak]

According to the Daily Mail , our Triathlete Brownlee brothers are competitive at everything, even chess!

Article

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Richard.

Got a famous Judge and Lord for you.

Lifted from the Chess Scotland site.

Ian Candlish Kirkwood (Lord Kirkwood) Born: 08 June 1932

Educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh, where he was a member of the school chess team.
During this period he played in the Scottish Boys' Championships of 1947 and 1948, sharing 1st place
with John A. Jackson in 1948 after each of them won their preliminary sections, and drew
a play-off match of three games.

Associated with Edinburgh Chess Club. Played Played in the Scottish Championship 1953.
Participated in the 1st World Student Team Chess Championship at Oslo, 1954;
there was no Scottish team, so he played as part of an Italy-Scotland-France team.

Member of the Edinburgh CC team that won the Richardson Cup 1958, and was also
on the team that lost in 1960.

He has retained his interest in chess, and is a patron of Edinburgh CC and Chess Scotland.

Lord Kirkwood is a graduate of the Universities of Edinburgh (MA, LLB) and Michigan (LLM).
Admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1957, and became a Queen's Counsel (Scotland) in
1970. Later, he was Standing Junior Counsel to the Scottish Home and Health Department in
1963. Served on the Parole Board for Scotland from 1994 to 1997. Chairman of Medical Appeals Tribunals.

Became a judge in 1987. He was one of five judges selected to hear the appeal of convicted
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
This appeal was heard at a special Scottish Court in the Netherlands in 2002.

-----

Also playing the 1953 Scottish Championship was one Erwin Knopfler (1909-1993)
Father of Mark and David Knopfler (Dire Straights).

[JustinHorton]

Straits.

[Geoff Chandler]

I stand corrected, it is Straits. Dire Straits.

(not much of pop group this, they can't even spell, not like The Beatles.)

[Mike Gunn]

Botvinnik was an Electrical Engineer, not a scientist.